Sammy Wheeler

Details: On June 7, 1992, thirty-six-year-old Sammy Wheeler was found brutally murdered in his car, shot several times, and apparently robbed while parked at the George Washington National Forest in Virginia. The killer had gone to great lengths to clean the crime scene; all shell casings and fingerprints were removed, and the killer had tried unsuccessfully to ignite the vehicle. After discovering that Sammy's wallet was missing, the FBI assumed that his murder was a random act of violence, but soon, three suspects emerged that suggested that he may have known his killer.

Suspects: Sammy's girlfriend, Pat Snead, her ex-husband, Bob Bean, and Sammy's twin brother, Danny, have all been considered suspects, each of them placing the blame on the other.
The story began in the fall of 1991, when Pat moved into a rental unit owned by Danny. The property was divided into two apartments; Pat lived in one with Sammy and her two sons, while Danny lived in the other. The arrangement worked well for everyone except for Bob. He asked Pat to live separately from Sammy, but she did not want to.
In February 1992, a court order required that Sammy would not allowed to be around Pat if she was with her sons. In order for this situation to work, he moved into Danny's apartment. Bob was still suspicious, so he hired a private investigator to ensure that the court order was obeyed. The private investigator claimed that Sammy violated it, but Danny said that this was not true. Sammy decided that he would sleep in his truck in order to show that he was not doing so.
Bob claims that he and Sammy were cordial to one another, but Danny says that this is not true. He believes that Bob hated Sammy and that he is a liar. Pat agreed with Danny, stating that Sammy did not trust Bob. On June 3, 1992, at around 5:30am, Sammy left Danny's apartment and found Bob's son (from a previous marriage) taking pictures of him. Sammy confronted Bob's son and told him that he was not violating the court order.
Danny believes that Bob hired a hitman to kill Sammy because he was unhappy about losing Pat and that he was living with her. Danny claims that Sammy and Pat were going to get married the week after his death. However, Bob claims that he was not upset that they were going to do so. He also appeared to have the perfect alibi: he was on maneuvers with his Army National Guard unit on the night of Sammy's murder. The camp he was at was 150 miles away; it would have been physically impossible for him to have committed the crime.

After Bob was cleared of any involvement by the police, he claimed that Pat was the real killer, saying, first of all, that she does not have a concrete alibi for the time of Sammy's murder. He first suspected that she was the killer when their two sons told him that they went to the forest the day that Sammy was killed. They allegedly said specific details about the crime that he does not believe they would have learned second-hand. He even videotaped them talking about what they knew; he then presented the tape to the police.
Danny believes that Bob coached his sons into making false statements about their mother. Authorities seemed to agree, as they dismissed the testimony as unreliable. They also believe that Pat also had an airtight alibi. She claimed to have been at home with the boys at the time of Sammy's murder. She was also eventually eliminated as a suspect.

After Pat was cleared, Bob once again told police of a possible suspect; this time, it was Danny. Bob believes that Danny may have killed Sammy because he was in love with Pat. At first, she assumed that Bob was responsible, but she now also suspects that Danny was involved. After Sammy's death, Danny told one of her friends that he was in love with her. He, however, claims that he is not attracted to her.
On the morning of Sammy's murder, his father and the police sergeant broke the news to Danny and Pat. He apparently began yelling and saying that Bob was the killer. He then grabbed his shotgun and ran for Bob's house. His father was able to calm him down. Pat believes that his hysterical reaction was a clever ploy to hide the fact that he was the killer. Once again, however, the authorities were able to confirm that he also had an alibi for the night of Sammy's murder. Several witnesses saw him bar-hopping into the early morning hours of June 7, 1992.
Based on the evidence, the authorities have ruled out Bob, Pat, and Danny in the case; however, they still believe that they each should be considered a suspect.Extra Notes: This case first aired on the October 28, 1994 episode.Results: Solved. In July 1998, an arrest was made in Sammy's death. Guy Price was identified after Sammy's family hired private investigator Alan Cates in March 1998. Within a few months, he located a witness who was with Price on the morning of June 7, 1992. The witness claimed that he was with Price when he robbed and killed Sammy. As the FBI originally suspected, the murder was indeed a random act of violence. He was convicted of murder and is now serving a life sentence. He became eligible for parole in 2012 but was denied.Links: None